Armenian Dissidents Visited Memorial to Victims of Khojaly Massacre

The Armenians and Azerbaijanis can conduct a direct dialogue - without intermediaries, and to solve the conflict. This was stated by the Armenian dissident and writer Vahe Avetyan, speaking in Baku at the international conference "The Armenian-Azerbaijani Nagorno-Karabakh conflict: the main obstacles and settlement prospects. View from Armenia and Azerbaijan."

Before the conference he and other Armenian dissident and human rights activist Vahan Martirosyan visited the memorial to the victims of the Khojaly massacre.

"My impressions of Azerbaijan are the brightest. The first time I came last month on my own initiative and called it my Hajj. I decided to come and bow to the memory of Khojaly victims, innocent victims. Thank God I did it," said Avetyan.

Avetyan expressed the hope that this is not his last visit. "We need a lot of work to do to resolve the conflict. We have a lot of refugees, yours and ours. If we do not solve this problem now, then the future will be even harder.

 We waged this conflict and we must solve it, not leaving it to future generations," continued Avetyan.

In his view, both the people who have experience of living together should stop ethnic hatred.

"I dream of the restoration of cultural and humanitarian ties. I'd love to transfer the dialogue to the direct level, without intermediaries. We are ripe for it. We must try to organize meetings at different levels. We need to translate our literature, our movies. We need to begin to invite Azerbaijan to the founders of our movement towards a peaceful settlement of the conflict - Georgi Vanyan and others," said Avetyan.

In turn, Vahan Martirosyan said that Armenia's population does not have objective information about Azerbaijan. "Armenian media never write the truth about what is happening today in Baku.

Azerbaijan takes the first steps at the state level, supporting reconciliation format. As long as the people that started the Khojaly genocide remain in power in Armenia, reconciliation will not happen. Now they themselves commit genocide in Armenia. They hide from the Armenians that in Baku under the state protection there is an Armenian church. Thousands of Armenians live in Baku. In Azerbaijan, in the regions there are Armenian shrines. They are protected. The great actor Dzhigarkhanyan is called a traitor in Armenia because he said that Azerbaijanis and Armenians have to come to terms," Martirosyan said.

“Any conflict is settled by those who have suffered, and this is Azerbaijanis and Armenians. Our nations will resolve the conflict - through NGOs and artists. It is time to make peace,” Martirosyan said.

There is not a single Armenian who would honestly say that the Karabakh conflict has brought him joy. All those who profited from the conflict must be brought to the Hague Tribunal for crimes against humanity, he said. -06D-